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It was pointed out to me this weekend and I had not noticed it before, but why doesn't it stop a target from bleeding out when a healer is preforming transfusion?

If this is so, what's the purpose of the Healer Specialization, Improved Transfusion? You can use transfusion on someone further into the negatives, but you don't have that extra time with your target before they bleed out.

Discuss!

A healer can use this:

First Aid - Charged Skill With the First Aid skill, the Healer may heal the target for up to 3 Life Points. The First Aid skill can only be used on a target that is in Critical Life (Below 0 life points) and can never be used to raise the target's Life Point total beyond 0. First Aid takes 60 Seconds to perform during which time the target stops bleeding to death. If at the end of the 60 Seconds the target is still in Critical Life, they continue their count to bleed to death where they left off. See page 84 for more information about bleeding to death.

...And this:

Extend Life – LP skill This skill allows the Healer to temporarily stabilize a target that is in negative life for up to three minutes. The Healer needs to spend 1 Life Point and have someone stay with the patient, but not necessarily the Healer himself or herself. The person left with the patient must stay in contact with the patient for the full three minute duration. If the Healer is not involved then he/she must tell the stabilizer that if they cease what they are doing then the patient instantly dies. Unless other treatment is resumed by the time the three minutes are up the injured character dies immediately. This skill is restricted to medium armor.

... a healer can get 4 minutes of non bleeding to death time with the patient. Depending on how soon they are at the bleeders side they could heal him for 9 or even 10 LP.

I'm sorry, but I don't follow.

Let's say you're down, you're in critical life and thankfully in the hands of a healer. The healer can assess you to find your life point total, but they have no way of telling where you are at your bleed out count. While you're down and in critical life, there are two things a healer really wants to avoid 1) Allow you to bleed out and 2) use Surgery beyond the 10 'freebie' life points that would make you draw chips.

So.. you're down. The healer uses First Aid. During that minute you stop bleeding to death (but you can't double up and also use transfusion at the same time). Hey, let's say you're lucky and your healer is also a paladin so you're healed 4 life instead of 3.

Okay, now let's start using Surgery. While the healer is doing this, you are also not bleeding out (but you can't double up and also use transfusion at the same time). So, after one minute you're healed another 10.

Alright, now your healer needs to decide if they want to continue surgery healing you for 1 life per minute and have you draw a chip every minute. We really want to avoid that if possible though.

Well, those are the two skills that have paused you bleeding to death and now you resume your bleed out count.

Yes, at this point, the healer uses extend life. This does NOT add 3 minutes that count. Your bleed out time has been reset to 3 minutes. Thankfully, your healer knows your bleed out time now and can plan accordingly. Oh, and by the way, if for some reason something happens to your caretaker during these 3 minutes, you INSTANTLY DIE! (fun times on the battle field).

So, what can your healer do in those 3 minutes?

Well, hopefully, by this time your healer has you at -9 or better so we can use transfusion. In those 3 minutes, your healer can use up to 6 (30 seconds each) transfusions because you're still bleeding out during this time.

For the sake of fun, lets say you were at -9 when your healer began the transfusion, now you're at -3, but the 3 minutes are up and you're dead. Okay, okay, lets say that your healer was smart and decided only heal 5 with transfusion, you're at - 4, but at least we have 30 seconds to guzzle down cure potions (which take 5 seconds each) to get you stabilized.

Ta-dah! You didn't bleed out and you didn't have to draw chips.

So, lets back this up again to the point where the healer started using transfusion. This time, your healer has the Advanced Specialization skill, "Improved Transfusion" - so instead of being able start transfusion at -9, they can start at -15 and for the sake of fun, you're at -15.

So again, in those 3 minutes you can be healed to -9. You could have taken potions at -9, but time's up and you're dead. Alternatively, the healer could have chose to only heal 5, giving you those 30 seconds to down potions.. but wait, you can't. You're at -10 and you can't start downing potions until you're at -9.

Well crud.

Alright, alright... Let's say your healer, who has Improved Transfusion, anticipated that during the battle they would need to start using transfusion on you while your at -15 and was able to get a sage buff to shave 5 seconds off transfusion (realistically, the healer would get 5 seconds off their heal skill or maybe go for the administer buff though). Now your healer can heal you from -15 to -9 in 2.5 minutes, giving you 30 seconds to consume enough potions to get you to 0.

It just feels weird that in order to utilize a skill specialization, you'd need to have a sage buff as well. I mean, aren't you already specialized in that area?

I do not have a simple answer for you at this time.

Currently it does not stop Bleed Out, the question is should it?

There are a couple ways to extend Bleed out, and stop it momentarily

Tourniquet, Extend Life, First Aid, Surgery.

At the moment it comes down to a Triage decision. Depending on how badly hurt someone is, in what order do I use my skills, or get another Healer's help.

For me one thing about the Haven system is that a majority of the time one person cannot do everything, and it sometimes takes a group effort to bring someone back form the brink of death.

If a person is at -15 LP, then it should pretty dang hard to bring them back to 0 LP, and I am of the opinion it should take a really good healer, or more than one to do it.

But that is my opinion.

I was trying to imply that one healer would use extend, and another transfuse.

I actually love the way the current heal system works (at a base level, perhaps number tweaking or whatever but the base is awesome)

if your getting healed, its quick and easy for the healer and the receiver "oh your cut, here's a Band-Aid now get back out there" fairly easy to patch up and possibly free of interrupt
if you drop into early negatives you require first aid, this is not hard to deal with but slightly more tense as you can be interrupted during first aid
if your in deep negatives you require surgery and run into the scenes that Phil mentioned above, very tense situation
then finally death, and the ever scary chip bag.

I just love the mechanics involved and they do a great job of showing the progressive difficulty and scariness behind everything.